“I’ll be back later. You’ll tell me”—she folded her arms over her chest as if it would still the shivering—“when you need me?”
“Your court needs you every day, Ani. No one else can feed on both touch and emotion; no one else can feed on both faery and mortal. You are the key.” Irial wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. It wasn’t much, but small touches from such a strong faery fed her skin hunger more than a lot of touch from a weak faery or a mortal would.
Ani stayed still, grateful for even the scant contact.
Irial stroked her hair. “You let me keep my promises to stop the ink exchanges, to protect my king…. We do need you, pup.”
She looked up at him. “As long as Gabriel and Niall don’t find out, right?”
“For now.” Irial stepped away, his hands still on her shoulders, and then he unfolded her arms and took her hands in his as he repeated the same assurances he had the past few months. “Just for now. Once we figure out what’s in your blood, they’ll understand why we did this.”
She nodded.
He led her to the door. “Do you need anything else?”
All sorts of things no one will give me.
Ani said nothing. Instead, she hugged him, knowing from other rejections that his offer didn’t include the other things she needed. Irial—for all of his love for court and king, for all his protection for family and beloved— didn’t want to hear what she truly needed. He wouldn’t share his bed with her or force her father to let her run free with the Hounds.
“I need to go,” Ani murmured, and then she turned her back on him before she gave in to the temptation to beg. He gave her enough to keep her from starvation, but the former Dark King wouldn’t help her fully sate her hungers. She would have to find a few tastes here and there to silence the gnawing inside her.
Again.
CHAPTER 4
Rae walked into the image of a tiny kitchen. Ani stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe. A memory played out in the adjoining room. The tableau was set in a different era than the one where Rae had lived. It was familiar though: it was a memory that Ani replayed over and over in her dreams. So, Rae waited for the memory to run its course.
“Tell me about her?” Ani asked her sister.
“Who?” Tish paused mid-math, pencil held in the air.
“You know. Her.” Ani practiced cartwheels on the sofa. Until Rabbit came up from the shop to remind her she wasn’t to do it, she’d cartwheel and flip in their tiny living room.
“I was six. How would I know?” Tish rolled her eyes. “I remember she was nice. She read books. There was a blanket Dad gave her. Her hair was light brown like yours.”
“Dad visited her?”
“Uh-huh.” Tish was done talking. She was filled with sadness that she was trying to hide. “Go read or something, Ani.”
Tish’s pencil was making scratching noises on the paper, like the sounds cockroaches made when all of their feet brushed the floor or walls. It was one of the many reasons Ani hated schoolwork. Tish never heard how loud her pencil was though. Her ears didn’t work right.
Ani flipped over and snatched the pencil. “Tag.”
“Give it back.”
“Sure… if you catch me.”
Tish looked at the clock, just a little glance. Then she snorted. “Like you could ever outrun me.”
And Ani was off, not as fast as she could run because that would make Tish sad, and making Tish sad was the one thing Ani never ever did on purpose.
Ani’s thinking of Tish so protectively wasn’t unusual, but more and more often, the memories of difference, of awareness of the sisters’ dissimilarities, had become central in Ani’s dreams.
“She is well? Your sister?” Rae asked, drawing Ani’s attention away from the memory.
Ani turned to face Rae. “Yeah, Tish is good. I miss her.”
“And you? Are you well?” Rae materialized a sofa that was reminiscent of one from her own long-gone sitting room.